Drone Used To Spy On Miami Partygoers

The rollout of domestic spy drones to watch the American people is accelerating, with footage taken during a recent Memorial Day event in Miami illustrating how authorities are using surveillance drones to keep tabs on partygoers.

People attending last month’s Miami Beach’s Memorial Day weekend celebrations, dubbed Urban Beach Week, expected a police crackdown that never came. But the revelers did get a taste of the new America in the form of a small police surveillance drone that hovered over bars and sidewalks recording the partygoers.

“That’s the police, that’s the police,” the man filming the video is heard to say as the drone hovers close to a bar between palm trees.

The reader who sent us the clip commented, “I live in Miami, Florida and on memorial day weekend Miami Beach turns into a POWER CRAZED police state. Besides the unlawful arrest quota of 2,000 for urban music weekend, military style roadblocks, and violating our rights, DRONES are now being deployed LIVE on and caught on video spying on the American people.”

Concerns regarding the unconstitutional use of spy drones against the American people in violation of the fourth amendment have exploded in recent weeks after Congress passed legislation paving the way for what the FAA predicts will be somewhere in the region of 30,000 drones in operation in US skies by 2020.

Privacy advocates have warned that the FAA has not acted to establish any safeguards whatsoever, and that lawmakers are not holding the agency to account.

Incidents involving the drones in recent months have hardly provided positive spin for the industry, which is why Americans are set to witness a massive PR campaign that will “bombard the American public with positive images and messages about drones in an effort to reverse the growing perception of the aircraft as a threat to privacy and safety.”